Wine merchant Linda Collier has spent 35 years living the dream

Walk into Linda Colllier's snug, quirky fine wine, spirits and beer shop and don't be surprised to be enveloped into the soaring sounds of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Collier, owner of Collier's of Centreville, will either be behind the counter ringing up a sale or tucked into some cozy corner helping a customer chose a bottle (or likely more) of wine from one of the thousands that fill the shelves, wicker baskets, bins and basement of the cluttered former needlepoint shop at 5810 Kennett Pike.

For more than three decades, customers have trusted Collier's wine advice and her palate. She has tasted each and every bottle that she sells in the store. Descriptions include the name, price, characteristics and grapes as well as her suggested food pairings.

Take the 2014 Damilano Langhe Arneis from Italy's Piedmont region. Collier tells customers this bright, crisp $22.99 white wine will go quite nicely with Creole shrimp with garlic and lemon or halibut with orange remoulade. Or maybe you'd like the Banshee Mordecai from California's Sonoma Valley? You can pair the $21.99 blended red wine, that has hints of spice and chocolate-covered plum, with Memphis barbecue, grilled lamb and maybe even Sloppy Joes.

Forget about those so-called rules that rosé is only a summer wine.

"Rosé is red wine in a pink dress," says Collier, who likes to drink it year-round.

On Saturdays, Collier holds free tastings from 1 to 5 p.m. to introduce new wines. And the monthly $20 wine classes held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the shop's second floor are her way to encourage wine lovers to stretch beyond their comfort zone and learn about esoteric grapes and wine countries that go well beyond France and Italy. She offers everything from South African gems to wines from Portugal to "hidden white beauties."

"Life is not only chardonnay," she writes in her wine brochure. "There are so many incredible grapes to explore and enjoy."

If you think there's a European ambiance to Collier's of Centreville, a business that is almost like an independent book shop for wine lovers, then Collier has accomplished her goal. When she first opened the business 35 years ago on Wilmington's Union Street, near Union Park Gardens, the 73-year-old modeled it after a wine shop she loved in Holland. Those shop owners even came to the United States in 1981 to help her celebrate her grand opening.

This Saturday, Dec. 3, Collier plans to celebrate her 35-year milestone by opening a salmanazar of Bollinger and a methuselah of Pol Roger and possibly Laurent Perrier -- that's more than 15 liters of French bubbles -- to toast "the wonderful people, my customers, that made it all possible by believing in, and supporting, an entrepreneur way before her time and continuing to for so many years."

The free tasting will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. at the shop.

But, while wine is Collier's passion, it no longer solely feeds her soul.

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"I don't need to see another winery. I've seen a lot," Collier says. A few years ago, she became involved with Habitat for Humanity and now the grandmother of seven goes on two international trips each year, usually in February and September,  to help build homes for needy families. She recently returned from a two-week trip to Nairobi in Kenya. In 2017, Collier will be off to Chile. It will be her ninth build.

Collier thought her first trip to Argentina to build a house in one week would be a one-and-done deal. But she became hooked on Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit volunteer organization, and has since been to Cambodia, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Bolivia, among other places. Collier jokes that she has a bad case of "Habitat-itis."

"Immediately when you come back, you think, 'Where next?""

And when she travels -- she goes alone -- Collier doesn't think about her daily business of selling wine.

"When I am away, I am away," she says. Her three children, however, have insisted she make at least one phone call. "I tell them, 'I'm here.' I check in and that's it. Then, I don't look at my cellphone."

Collier's enthusiasm and stamina would shame most twentysomethings. "I don't need a lot of sleep. I like the build work. I like being on scaffolding," she says, flipping through the scrapbooks she keeps of her trips. "I love fixing things." Her two dogs, Charlemagne and Bollinger, and working in her store help keep her physically fit. "I lift cases [of wine] all the time. I don't sit around."

The trips have given her a completely new outlook on life. "Why do I need fancy shoes? I think now, 'That would be another build.' It makes you look at all the waste we do."

She has developed bonds with the people she helps and her fellow volunteers. "The people you meet are the most incredible people you want to know. I'm getting way more out of this than they do. They make you feel like you've never felt before."

Collier has always been an adventure-seeker, a dreamer and a risk taker. She and her former husband, Lou, lived in Europe for six years while he worked for the DuPont Co. It fueled her love and admiration for good food and travel and wine as something to be enjoyed daily with meals. It was the first time in her life she didn't work - she had three small children, one she adopted while she was pregnant - and often hopped on trains with her children to visit various countries.

After living in Holland, Switzerland and Austria, she and her husband moved to Wilmington in the early 1980s. They brought back 600 bottles of wine.

At the time, wine was not as readily a part of culture as it today. Collier says she remembers going into a New Castle County liquor store and telling a clerk she was serving veal with a herb-cream sauce for dinner and asked for his wine recommendation. He looked at her like she was crazy for asking about a pairing.

He said, 'Lady, reds there and whites here. Take your pick.'"

Collier knew she could do better than that. Two days later, she began looking for a store to run herself. The weekend of Thanksgiving in 1981 she opened a liquor store, a former grocer on Union Street. It wasn't all easy going. Collier found out state laws did not allow tasting wine in a shop, something she always did in Europe. It didn't stop her.

"I was raised in a household where anything can be done," she says.

Collier helped write a bill, went to Dover to Legislative Hall and spoke on it. It was accepted that day.

Then, she called Gov. Mike Castle's office six times every day until he signed the bill. "That was when I found out that one little no one from nowhere can make a difference," she says.

It wasn't the end of her charge. Collier helped change other state regulations, such as making it easier to buy wine in Delaware, and, for many years, was the head of the Retail Liquor Commission.

Collier opened her second store in 1990 adjoining Buckley's Tavern in Centreville. She first asked to buy the restaurant. "Why think small?" she joked. "I have a tendency to ask for ridiculous things. If you don't ask you don't get." Collier didn't get the restaurant, but she got the adjoining package store and began carving out her own niche in the building.

After four years, Collier discovered operating two businesses and spending too much time in her office wasn't what she wanted to do. "I wanted to be surrounded by bottles and people."

There were other changes. Linda and Lou separated and eventually divorced. "We decided to be best friends instead of married." She also turned 50. After selling the flagship Wilmington business, Collier took a trip alone to India and Nepal.

Eleven years ago, Collier made another change and moved her business again, this time to a historic home on Kennett Pike dating back to the 1800s near Buckley's Tavern. It had once been a shop known as the Jolly Needlewoman.

These days, Collier is enjoying the banter with her customers and the shop's intimacy. "Most of the time people come in here and want to be told what to do. I love that," she says, laughing.

She says although the shop has given her many hours of hard work, it also has provided her with a lifestyle that she wouldn't change.  "Wine is passion and a major part of its pleasure is sharing with like-minded people whether it be in a shop or a restaurant with a full dining experience. I am very happy that I tried for, and accomplished, my dream."

And her passport isn't far from her side. Collier says she doesn't often talk much about her wine business while on her Habitat for Humanity trips, though she always travels with a stemmed plastic wine glass packed into her suitcase.

"I instigate happy hour," she says.

Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico

IF YOU GO:

WHAT: A celebration of Linda Collier's 35 years in business. To celebrate this milestone, Collier will be opening a salmanazar of Bollinger and a methuselah of Pol Roger and Laurent Perrier to toast "the wonderful people, my customers, that made it all possible by believing in, and supporting, an entrepreneur way before her time and continuing to for so many years."

WHERE: Collier's of Centreville, 5810 Kennett Pike, Centreville.

WHEN: The free tasting is from 1 to 5 p.m. Dec. 3.

INFORMATION: Call (302) 656-3542 or visit www.collierswine.com or the Collier's of Centreville Facebook page.